The Legend of Blood Mountain

This is a rarely seen movie and that is a shame. It's very regional, having been made in the SouthEast for primarily an audience in the area, but it does deserve to have wider recognition for the mid 1960s B Movie classic it is. Atlanta area TV Horror Host Bestoink Dooley plays a copyboy out on the biggest story of his life. The mountain is bleeding and people are being killed up there. What follows is one of the wildest movies since Ed Wood. The "Monster" looks like a guy in a brown leotard with a hornet's nest stuck on his head, cottonballs glued everywhere on his body and two tails on either side of his hips. We are talking garage-made monster here. Bestoink is shown as a bumbler who eventually does good despite himself. Words really can't do this movie justice, had Michael Medved seen this movie, it would be 1000 times more famous than it is and would be on the top five of any list of worst movies ever made. Highly recommended, if you can find it.

DEMON HUNTER aka THE LEGEND OF BLOOD MOUNTAIN was an Atlanta-lensed monster flick starring Atlanta TV legend George Ellis as his "Bestoink Dooley" character. The writing and cinematography are "freshman year film school" at best but the film has a surprising amount of charm and is helped by a running time of just over one hour. It is comprised of set pieces that make you constantly go "WTF??". The blood and monster effects are pretty lame even by 1965 standards (you have to remember that American had already been hit over the head by the appalling excess of BLOOD FEAST by this point) so more laughs and chuckles than real horror. Despite the massive flaws it DID make money and the cast has a certain charm that is hard to ignore. Especially George. No matter how bad the comedy bits get and no matter how bumbling Bestoink is, he manages to maintain a certain dignity during the proceedings that most actors would never be able to manage with such material. You often watch this movie and swear that it was written and shot by Hal P. Warren of "Manos" infamy. Even some of the background music is very reminiscent of the jazz tooting in "Manos". From a "film school" standpoint, this movie is a complete bust. From a "have a few beers and let her rip" point of view, LEGEND is a film that can easily go toe to toe with such other anti-classics such as "Manos", "Monster A-Go Go" and "The Giant Spider Invasion". Not bad company to be in if you are a bad film...

I was a student at Georgia Tech when a fellow Photography Club member told me that he had shot stills for this movie company. I went with him one day to see what goes into making a movie and started helping out with the filming chores on Stone Mountain (outside Atlanta, GA). Asked if I would like a job, I quickly accepted and spent all my spare time on the film for 6 months. I organized the rushes (16mm version of each roll of film shot with each frame numbered) and learned how to assemble the scenes into a rough cut movie. I also worked with the music library (350 hours of music themes) to add background music to the film (I had specialized in recorded sound during my high school years). After the film was roughed in, we went to Master Recording Studio for about a month to record the dialog for the film. Using the preliminary movie print and the tinny sound recorded on site as a guide, we had the original actors come into the recording studio to rerecord their voices to match the image. These rerecorded dialog tapes were synced to the movie print at this point. Later, when the first review print was ready, we viewed it at the Paramont (I think) studio in downtown Atlanta. This was a 30 seat theatre with a 35mm projector and communication with the projectionist so that we could tell him when to start, stop, rewind, etc the film as we made comments on continuity, color balance, voice, and music.

This film was made to show in the Saturday morning movie circuit of about 450 "hardtop" theatres. Comedy/horror was a popular movie type at the time that almost guaranteed one showing in each theatre. As I recall the economics, the movie cost about $750,000 and would gross $1.25 million in one pass through the 450 theatres.

Bestoink Dooley (played by Gregory Ellis) was a "character" that had a Saturday morning kids program in the Atlanta area. He brought the exact character to the film that he used on his weekly show.

I would love to get a video of this film ... my four children have never see it (and wonder if Daddy really did this).

Bestoink Dooley (George Ellis) was the host of The Friday Night Big Movie Shocker! shown at 11:00 PM on the Atlanta area CBS Affiliate WAGA.Later it was also shown on Saturday mornings at the end of the "kiddie" line up. George and his brother later purchased and managed the Ansley Mall Film Forum in Atlanta. As bad as "Blood Mountain" might have been, his taste in films was excellent. I saw numerous cult films, such as "A Boy and His Dog", and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Forum, along with other great movies like Zefferelli's "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" and "Ballad of Narayama". I'd love to get a video of "Blood Mountain", are there any out there?

My first wife and I were dancers in the beach party scene with Marriane Gordon. I worked with George Ellis who played Bestoink Dooley at Dimension Incorporated in Atlanta, GA and he offered me and my wife the bit parts in the movie. The beach party scene which lasted just a few minutes took all night to film. BTW This movie was one of the top 10 grossing movies of 1965, by grossing over a Million dollars. I assume it played at a lot of drive-ins. I have a DVD copy of the movie that I have shown to my family until they were sick of it. George Ellis also starred in "Moonrunners" that movie was a prequel to "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show.